Sheffield City Council here in the UK runs a free course, which is currently run over 5 sessions that is about starting a tech business. It’s run by the part of the council called Business Sheffield. The course has been run a number of times and at the moment I’m half way through the current one. The course is run by 2 former and 1 current tech business founders from Sheffield. There is no cost to attend and it’s meant to be a look at the normal things that you would consider if you wanted to start a tech business. Each session runs for 2 and a half hours.

I decided to go to the course for a couple of reasons. It might seem like a bit of an odd choice, someone who has had a limited company since 2013, why am I going to this course? Well, the reason is that I’m looking at changing the nature of the business. As a result I need to take a holistic view of what’s going on. Another reason is that since the sessions are weekly, then simply committing to going is going to keep my motivation for the startup idea that I have. There’s also additional side benefits, like meeting cool people who might become the movers and shakers coming up.

I’m 3 sessions into the 5, and the presenters are Chris Wheater, Morgan Killick and Robin Gibbons. They are full of good advice. I was particularly impressed in the evidencing of the opinions. Having experienced people who have been there and done it means that they can speak with confidence and they tailor their advice well. I also think it gives them confidence to talk about the limits of their knowledge. That is to say sometimes the correct answer to a question is “We don’t know - you will have to do some testing around that”

One question I had after the first session was about building a team. In the first session it was stated that we should find the gaps in our knowledge and attempt to fill them as we build our team. But it occurred to me afterwards that it’s hard to know who to is skilled at something I am not skilled at. My question was, roughly, how can I find good people when I don’t really know what good looks like.

I guess this is a common business problem, but the answer was immediate, “It’s hard, a common approach is to try and give people small tasks to prove their ability”. It’s a pragmatic answer. I liked it.

There is a satisfyingly diverse group of people on the course. We have 20 ish people representing roughly the people you would find in Sheffield. It’s pleasing to see a few engineers there who have been drawn to Sheffield by the Universities and want to make a business here. As a software engineer I have a soft spot for proper engineers.

There’s people who have a rough idea, and those who are already quite a long way down the development road. And there are some really good business ideas.

The best one in my opinion is Graceful Running. I think there’s a really good idea and product there, and I hope it takes off.